


Time Distortion

by munarei



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: AU, Kinda, M/M, Romance, Timeline what, spoilers ahoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1498375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/munarei/pseuds/munarei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a moment where he thinks that what he’s doing is useless, that it won’t amount to anything. But then he sees the other’s smile that stretches across his lips and that contentment in his gaze then he knows that it’s worth it in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Distortion

**Author's Note:**

> “I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.  
> "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  
> ― J.R.R. Tolkien

The first time he wakes up and looks next to him, he feels crushing disappointment and he doesn’t understand why. After all, he’s only a teenager with a shitty uncle, a dead dad and a mom who couldn’t remember her own name let alone her son’s. His fingers grasp at the blankets as he sits up slowly, running a hand through his brown hair.

 

A name escapes his memory, the sunlight flickers through the room and he doesn’t think about it again.

 

His girlfriend/friend with benefits, whatever, invites him over later that night while she’s babysitting a kid because she knows about the crappy place he’s stuck in and he agrees, if only to get out of the fucking house he’s in. Probably just get the kid to sleep before they fucked around. Literally.

 

When he gets there, he sees his girlfriend playing with a younger boy as she turns, smiles at him and introduces him to her charge.

 

He meets golden eyes and the breath leaves him so quickly that he almost sits on the ground hard. Actually, that’s exactly what happens, by the concerned look on his girlfriend’s face and the curious look on the boy’s.

 

“Alvin, this is Jude Mathis.”

 

_Jude._

He remembers _everything._

 

When a soft hand touches Alvin’s knee, he meets the younger boy’s calm gaze that’s so familiar, it takes everything he has not to squeeze the other close to him and see if he remembered too. “Are you okay?” he asks as Alvin barely manages to nod his head.

 

He can’t stay. He has to go.

 

With only an apology, Alvin runs out of the house, runs away from the pressing memories that threatens to envelop him.

 

He never sees that boy again.

 

The next timeline, he wakes up and he remembers this time. The name of the boy on his lips, the memories from before and the fact that he ran away before even starting.

 

He swears he won’t make that mistake again.

 

This time, he’s a young man with a family name to inherit. His father still lives, his mother makes peach pies as though he’s still a kid (not that he minded really, his mom’s peach pies were the best). He flirts around but always, _always_ keeps an eye out for Jude, determined not to run away this time.

 

He finds Jude but as a married man, who’s a successful doctor, a loving wife and two children while in the streets one day. Jude looks up at him, smiles at him while introducing his family, and Alvin can literally hear his heart break.

 

Was Jude better off without him, he wondered?

 

But when he stays with the young man and becomes his friend, Jude looks up at him one night and confesses that sometimes he feels like there’s something missing and he can’t figure out what. Alvin can feel his heart sing again and repair itself before he casually replies that maybe he should spend more time with his wife to fix that piece missing while waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

 

His shoulder stings from where the doctor had punched him, his face red, but he doesn’t care. It was worth it.

 

Alvin counts on the next time to find Jude, to tell him what he meant to tell him a long time ago before someone snatches him up before him.

 

The third time, he doesn’t find Jude.

 

He wakes up every day, his heart always searching, but he never does find him.

 

So he tries again.

 

Each lifetime he spends looking for Jude and sometimes he’s successful. He falls in love with the boy each time he sees him, no matter what situation they’re in and sometimes he gets so close that it’s crushing defeat when something happens and they’re separated again.

 

By this point, he loses count.

 

There’s timelines where he makes mistakes, gets Jude or himself killed and when he sees the anguish in the younger boy’s gaze, he almost wants to remain dead so that he never sees that look in his eyes again.

 

But he can’t run away like he did before.

 

There were timelines where they were happy together for a brief instant, where Jude whispers that he forgives Alvin when Alvin gets angry and starts shouting. Alvin cries at those words.

 

Jude would _always_ forgive him. But would he forgive him for something he did a long _long_ time ago?

 

He never has the courage to say it.

 

He always wonders if Jude would remember if he told him what happened. The universe seems to be pushing him to tell Jude the truth because every time he finds that happiness with Jude, something happens to them and they’re forced apart.

 

If that isn’t a sign, Alvin would eat his scarf.

 

This time he feels lucky though. He finds Jude, a nineteen year old medical student whose hair falls in his eyes and who isn’t married and introduces himself in the coffee line after Jude accidentally spills his tea on him. It burns, but Alvin couldn’t give a damn.

 

It’s the happiest he’s been in _years_. Jude is exactly the same person he has always been, kind to a fault and always dropping those puns and Alvin falls faster in love all over again.

 

He’s always watching out though, for accidents, anything that would rip him away from the one person he loves most. When Jude gets hurt after tripping on a staircase, Alvin’s immediately at the hospital and nearly, very nearly cries to see that Jude just twisted his ankle.

 

One day, weeks after they first meet, Jude looks up at him with those golden eyes and says three words with a red face, Alvin almost has a heart attack and squeezes the boy close at those words.

 

It’s the three words he’s been waiting to hear again for so long.

 

There’s a moment where he thinks that what he’s doing is useless, that it won’t amount to anything. But then he sees the other’s smile that stretches across his lips and that contentment in his gaze then he knows that it’s worth it in the end.

 

One morning while curled up in bed in their shared apartment, Alvin wakes up to Jude staring at him for a moment.

 

He laughs. “Y’can look all you want kid, but what’s up so early in the morning?”

 

Jude blushes a little at that before he shrugs a little and rests his head on his pillow again. “I…it’s nothing really. I just had a weird dream.”

 

Alvin pauses at that, a million emotions running through his face at once before he reaches out and ruffles the other’s hair. “You had a nightmare?” he tilts his head, a strangely serious expression on his face.

 

Jude pauses then shakes his head. “It’s going to sound weird but…you were in it. You were really angry about something and you…had a gun.”

 

Alvin’s heart drops about thirty feet into his stomach.

 

“We ended up fighting and…” Jude swallows a little and starts to get up. “Y-You know what, it was just a dream anyway,” he says, smiling awkwardly at Alvin whose face is still pale. “Sorry, it sounds weird doesn’t it?”

 

Alvin has a choice. He could run away like the first time when he met Jude as a teenager or…

 

He catches the other’s hand and squeezes it almost too tightly as he pulls the other to sit down in bed, his gaze cast downwards. “It…it doesn’t sound weird Jude.” His tongue is heavy. He doesn’t want to do this. Jude would just leave him like he _should_. He would give up after this timeline if Jude walked away from him. He didn’t deserve that kind of happiness.

 

“W…what?” Jude’s voice is trying to make light of the situation before he lets the other pull him close.

 

“That…Just…just listen to me okay?” Alvin whispers almost urgently, holding the other close to him. “That dream…actually happened to you and me. I…I shot you that day and I killed you.”

 

He goes on to explain just what happened.

 

What he remembered that day, all those timelines ago, was his lowest point, when he killed Jude in Hamil, his gun smoking, Leia screaming and shoving Alvin away from Jude’s body.

 

Elympios died.

 

Alvin was left without a single friend in the world, left without _Jude_.

 

He remembers before he dies in some inn that he wants to change. He wants to try again and again if he has to, just to make things right with Jude and apologize. Maxwell takes pity on the poor stupid human who was stuck in a place that he didn’t belong in and Alvin is reborn again and again to try and make things right.

 

He expects Jude to tear away from him, call him crazy and run away from him. It’s to be expected, the person you were with for almost a year now telling you that he killed you. Alvin would have probably walked out.

 

Instead, he looks up to see Jude… _crying_?

 

“Jude?” he cups the other’s face gently, thumb wiping at the other’s tears. “Jude, what’s wrong?”

 

Jude hiccups, he’s crying that hard as he presses his face into the other’s shoulder. It takes him a moment to calm down before looking up at him, a quavering smile on his lips. “I…I remember. I remember everything, Alvin I…” He presses his hand against the one on his face and smiles up at him. “I remember you, Milla, Elize, Rowen, Leia…I remember we were on a journey but things went badly and…” He pauses, his voice growing heavy. “I remember that Milla died and...that you did kill me..." 

 

Alvin can’t breathe. When he does, his voice cracks. “You…you can...how can you _smile_ at me like that Jude? I killed you and…y-you could have done so much more and I ruined it for you and everyone.”

 

Jude doesn’t answer for a moment, his smile falling but keeping the other’s hand pressed against his face. He looks hesitant but then slowly answers. “Because…I don’t know what you went through to find me again like this but…I can tell that you went through a lot.” Jude closes his eyes and breathes in slowly. “The way you treated me here, the times you worried so much over me even though you played it off with a joke…Even if you did what you did, a part of it is my fault for not realizing it sooner, that I had to stand on my own feet. “

 

Alvin doesn’t answer, can’t answer. Jude was doing it again. He was forgiving him for the unforgivable, giving him love where it should have been hate. He squeezes the other close to him, breathing coming out in dry sobs. “None of that is your fault, you idiot kid,” he finally says, “I was too much of a coward to try and move on my own two feet instead of being yanked around on a chain all of the damned time.”

 

Jude shakes his head then slowly wraps his arms around the other, holding him close to him and squeezing tightly. “It’s okay Alvin. You can let go of that now,” he whispers into the other’s hair, kissing the top of his forehead. “I’m going to stay by your side.”

 

Those words meant _everything_ to him. Alvin squeezes the other close to him, feeling the burden of the truth slide off his shoulders as he pulls the other down to kiss him almost desperately, to make sure the other was still there with him. Jude responds, clutching the other’s shirt still and they both fall into bed.

 

It doesn’t go far because Alvin’s too much of an emotional wreck to try to do anything and instead he just holds the other tightly and pets his hair. “I’m sorry,” he says finally, “I’m sorry for everything Jude.”

 

“It’s alright,” Jude replies in tandem, a warm soft smile on his face. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

 

For once in his life, Alvin can feel that things would be alright and he smiles in return.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this: http:// s2b2. livejournal . com / 142934.html
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this fic! It was fun to write. I'm getting used to writing in Alvin's perspective. Poor guy's been through so much. 
> 
> Annnnd. I hope this makes sense haha. Like the whole timeline jumping thing.


End file.
